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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Zippy me

I have a lot of balls in the air right now. Other people (my husband included) might say (or snap) that it’s too many, but I can’t quite bring myself to put it in such negative terms. I’m having fun, buzzing from activity to activity, trying to keep up with myself. It feels good.

It feels like a lot, too.

Random shot of Life: Splinter Removal

Take today, for example. There was cookie baking in the morning. I mixed up a double batch of peanut butter cookie dough, baked lemon sweetie pies, baked a freaking multitude of gingerbread men (to be decorated later), and started some anise-fig-date swirls that I couldn’t finish because I have no anise in the house—duh. I baked bread and mixed up another batch. I served three little munchkins some lunch. I planned supper (for the curious among you: honey-baked chicken, rice, brussel sprouts, a fennel-cabbage-carrot slaw). Now, the kitchen cleaned up and the kids resting, I’m tapping away at my keyboard, getting some much-craved writing time.

(Large bunny trail: when I type, I pound on my laptop keys, which irks Mr. Handsome to no end. My kids, on the other hand, touch the keys so gently you can hardly even tell they are pressing down. Their approach to the keyboard is so totally different from me and my loud tap-whacks that I’ve come up with a theory: I was trained to attack the bloomin' keyboard because I learned to type on a manual typewriter. You’re familiar with those old, clunky heirlooms, right? The kind where you have to bear down with your whole upper body to get the keys to go down, and with each strike your finger nearly disappears into the bowels of the machine entirely? [That I attack all areas of my life like they need to be conquered is neither relevant NOR up for discussion.] Does this theory of mine hold any water? O, ye of the manual typewriter era, enlighten me, please. Do you pound your words into life? Or is it just me?)

(And, by the way, I’m looking for one or two of those old typewriters. I think they’d make excellent, and useful, toys.)

Now, after writing this afternoon (and drinking coffee and eating chocolate), I’ll need to do some more cooking (that supper I mentioned won’t just make itself) and perhaps do a little jewelry-making. And then I’m off to town to run errands and go to a belly dance class.

Other things that aren’t as visible but that still take up mind space (and time!):*a novel I’m itching to dive into*a friend’s phone call and interview of me and then the subsequent article that made me laugh so hard I about peed myself (she beautifully encapsulated my random energy and blabbermouth ways and still managed to flatter me, bless her)*belly dance workouts in my kitchen*emails/correspondence/phone calls*photography (got some books from the library, gonna teach myself some skeels)*Christmas decorating (because Sweetsie is fussing that everyone else is having Christmas except for us)

See what I mean? It’s a lot of stuff and all of it fun and I don’t know which way to turn. (Except away from the dust and laundry and sticky floors—I’m pretty good at turning away from those.)

So what do you think I did last night when we finally got the kids trundled off to bed and I had a blissfully free evening stretched out before me? I went from sitting in front of the fire to laying in front of the fire, my reading material, unopened, sitting heavy a-top on my chest. The heat, my sore neck (must have slept on it wrong), the silence, they all conspired against me and shipped me off to la-la land.

Which wasn’t a bad thing, because falling asleep in front of the fire is a perfectly seasonal activity, one that should’ve been on the above list all along.